The worldwide market for wearable devices, including smartwatches, smart clothing, and fitness trackers, has increased 17.9 percent from the total number of units shipped in 2016, according to a report from IDC.

Apple shipped 3.5 million wearable devices worldwide in the first calendar quarter of this year, rising 59 percent from 2.2 million units in Q1 2016 and overtaking Fitbit as the world’s largest wearables vendor for the quarter.

Over the past few years, the concept of using heartbeat data to encrypt information and authenticate personal and enterprise users has been gaining consideration as an alternative to expensive, computationally-heavy encryption techniques unsuited for wearable devices.

Google’s software platform for wearables may be receiving its first major update on February 9th, according to the latest information from at least one known reliable Twitter source who does his job fairly well.

Although the overall wearable device market was projected to decline this year as a consequence of redundant functionality with most smartphone apps, a small handful of companies have managed to develop around the sales plateau with some useful technology for diabetics and athletes.

The market for wearable devices including smartwatches and fitness trackers in the US is progressing along at a rather slow pace of just 25 percent year-over-year, according to the latest industry estimates.